Pastor Terry Cheek Th.D.

www.theinspiringword.org

Whether you are a long time reader or have recently joined us I want to take a moment to tell all of you how much we appreciate your readership, prayers and support of “The Inspiring Word”. For the August publication I have been ask to give testimony of how God has and is developing this article into a media ministry with worldwide outreach.

After God saved me. He provided me with many good men as examples of Christian leaders and mentors. My secular career was in the electrical trades and I was owner of a reasonably successful electrical service company. I felt I could expand my career into engineering so I took a two-year program at the local community college with plans to continue with a four-year program upon graduation. Well friends, God had other plans. Upon graduating community college, I was called to preach and God opened the doors for me to attend Bible College with the Covington Bible College and Seminary outside Chattanooga Tennessee. Folks, in July 2008 the Lord blessed me with a Ph.D. in Theology with no student debt. To this day I look back not knowing how He made it happen but I know this, He did!

As I reflect I am reminded of Mark 10:27 where we read “And Jesus looking upon them saith, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible.” These words resonate through my heart as I witness the authority of the gospel and its ability to penetrate, touch and changes lives.

Now for the most amazing part of the testimony, how God established “The Inspiring Word.” In 2004 I began a website called “The Preachers Journal” using a popular website building software. The website done pretty good, it was nothing more than a depository of my message outlines. The idea was that maybe someone could glean something from them. Then around 2014 the corporation that owned the software I used stopped supporting it. I had hundreds of outlines sorted by books of the Bible and crosslinked for word searching within the site. The format could not be migrated into another software; ten years of work was no longer usable. What could I do? “The Preachers Journal” was finished. I was down, really down, and to be honest feeling sorry for myself.

Weeks later I was in a local store and saw a copy of “The Blue Ridge Christian News” I picked it up, took it home and began reading it. What a blessing! To beat all, I knew some of these men who were published. While in seminary I was required to do a lot of writing for academic’s and I had even explored submitting material to theological journals. Only God wasn’t leading me that direction. God did place this question in my heart, what are the requirement’s for getting published in the BRCN? I prayed about this and conviction took hold. I found the name of the editor, Clint Pollard, and sent him an email with a short ministerial description and a question about getting published. Clint responded, send me something. I prayed and wrote and prayed over it some more and sent it. Next issue we were printed, through the blessings of readers like yourself we’re still here. But the story continues.

Not long after I began writing for BRCN the door opened for another website. The company offers audio & video sermon posting with a blog site and many additional features for a monthly subscription rate. I talked to my wife (Lori), we prayed about it and felt God wanted us to move this direction. The following Sunday morning we began recording the morning services at Calvary Missionary Baptist Church where I pastor. I would attach an introduction and post them. We’re a small rural church located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of McDowell county N.C. and we have the opportunity to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ! What an awesome revelation! We prayed about the name for this ministry. We felt led to keep the name of our BRCN article since this is where God began this ministry. “The Inspiring Word” media ministry was now a monthly pastoral publication, an audio and video broadcast and has since grown to add a current events commentary podcast called “Crisis & Concern” and we also post every BRCN article as a blog. Yes, it’s a lot of work, prayer, commitment and an indescribable blessing!

So what has God done with it? As of this writing God has sent us to 100,393 places. “The Inspiring Word” sermons have been accessed more than 19,000 times and they have been downloaded 5,854 times. The BRCN blog views stand at 50,136. On multiple occasions God has sent us into all 50 states and placed us on 6 of the world’s 7 continents (the only one I cannot confirm is Antarctica). For example; God has sent “The Inspiring Word” into China, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, Spain, Italy, the UK, Africa, the Philippines, Canada, South America, and many more; all multiple times.